Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 79940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
“Maeme,” I began and gripped the books tighter to my chest, “I, uh…what is happening with my…Churchill?”
I couldn’t call him my husband. I hated him. I feared him. I never wanted to see him again, yet if he found me, he would make me come back. He would make me pay for all he’d been through. For embarrassing him. It was a fate worse than prison.
She sighed. “Well, he went missing. Seems he drugged his nurse and cook. When they came to, they were tied up and blindfolded in closets. He took his car, and it hasn’t been found. His bank accounts were wiped clean. The latest belief is, he fled the country for illegal activities he’d been involved in. Some believe he got mixed up with the Mafia. It isn’t concrete yet. But…they also think he might have killed his wife and hidden her body. You see, he had surveillance videos in your home. They were hidden, and the authorities didn’t find them until he went missing. Your abuse was on them, Rumor. But the men who came into your home were not. In fact, the only thing they found according to the news was the abuse.”
I stood there, staring at her, not sure I had heard all that correctly. Video cameras? The Mafia? I shook my head. What in the world had Hill done? He hadn’t fled the country. He wouldn’t do that. He’d want revenge. He’d want to find me and make me pay. Fleeing would make him look guilty, and he never accepted blame for anything. It was always someone else’s fault.
Was he…dead? Didn’t the Mafia kill people? Had that been the Mafia who shot him, and then when they found out he wasn’t dead, they came back to finish him off?
“I maybe should have said that a little less bluntly. You’ve gone pale,” Maeme said, touching my arm. “I’m sorry. I thought it would come as a relief to you.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. What if…what if it was the Mafia? What if they know I was in the house?” I felt the blood drain from my face, and I let out a panicked gasp. “Oh God. What if they are looking for me? I can’t stay here. I have to go. They’ll find me. They can do that, can’t they? Don’t they have connections? It’s…it’s a matter of time.”
I backed up until my back was to the wall as realization spread through me. I was going to die. I wouldn’t go to prison. I was going to be murdered.
“You’ve done not a thing wrong. The Mafia ain’t coming for you. If they killed that bastard, he deserved it. They don’t go killing people who don’t need to be killed. And you were a victim. Now,” she said, taking the books from my arms, “take a deep breath. I am going to set these books in the library, and we are going to get us some Bundt cake and sweet tea. We can talk about it. Whatever you need, but I promise you that you are safe.”
I wanted to believe her, but she didn’t know. She lived in a small town in Georgia. She owned a pecan orchard. She made Bundt cakes and cooked for a big family every Sunday morning. She knew nothing about the world that Churchill had gotten mixed up in. I couldn’t stay here and bring that kind of danger to her doorstep. At least with the police, it was me they would come after. The Mafia could kill her, trying to get to me.
King. I had to tell King. He’d agree with me. He wouldn’t want his grandmother harboring someone the Mafia was after. Finally, he’d take me somewhere and let me go into hiding, alone, which was what I should have done all along. Not living in this dream world where nothing bad happened and I had no responsibilities and read books all day. This escape from reality was over.
• twenty-five •
“If she wanted to look like a fucking snack, then so be it.”
King
Making sure Rumor didn’t try and run had put a kink in my plans this afternoon. Moira, one of the newest in my line up of women, had been pissy about us not fucking. But she would get over it. That, or she could leave. I’d rather she sucked my dick before she did go, but right now, I had to get Rumor back to the stables and under all our surveillance.
Maeme had been worried she was going to try and leave the moment she was alone, but I’d been watching the cottage through the app on my phone since she’d been taken back to get ready, and she wasn’t doing anything yet. Hopefully, she wouldn’t. I had known it was time to tell her where things stood, but I’d been putting it off. Maeme should have let me do it. She was too fucking blunt.